Chapter II: Gratitude

Bertha was insensible. A deadly sickness seized upon her when she felt the horse slipping helplessly down to the roaring waters, that seemed to clamor like famished wild beasts for their lives. Even now she believed herself dead; for the first sound that struck her senses was the fierce howl of the flood as it rioted across the wrecked bridge, seizing old planks and timbers, and carrying them away piecemeal.

“Bertha, my poor Bertha, look up—stir! Do something that we may know you are alive!”

It was Fletcher, who forgot everything but the danger. The wild tenderness of his voice might have aroused the dead, but it did not reach Bertha.

“Oh, my God! she is dead—she is dead!” he cried, turning his white face to the crowd, as he held the senseless girl in his arms, with the despairing look of a man who prays to be contradicted. “Is she dead?”

The last words were uttered almost with a cry of rage.

“Make room; here comes the old people.”

A little old woman, in garments of soft dove-color, and with a delicate Quaker cap on her head, came through the crowd, and, kneeling by the lifeless girl, kissed her on the forehead and on the white lips.

“Give her to me, young man, and thee go for a doctor,” she said, gently untying the riding-hat, which she flung away, with its wet feather, leaving the pale face and rich disturbance of Bertha’s hair all exposed.

Fletcher resigned the cold form to the gentle old woman, and turned to obey, but some one had been before him. That moment a doctor came bustling through the crowd, covered with mud, and carrying a whip in his hand.

“Dead—nothing of the kind!” he asserted, answering the intense expression of Fletcher’s eyes, rather than the tearful questions of the two girls, who wrung their hands over their school-mate in bitter self-upbraiding. “Give me brandy, if any one has had the thought to bring it, and a warm shawl; you will find one in my buggy. Thank you, that is just the thing. Rub her hands while I pour some down her throat; there, that brings her to.”

Bertha opened her eyes, and her lips moved.

“Fletcher—Fletcher—did he go down?”

Fletcher came forward, trembling with a strange thrill of delight, but pale, almost as the young creature who asked for him. Kneeling down by her side, he whispered:

“You see I have not been so happy as to die for you!”

A terrible shudder passed over the young creature—tears broke through her quivering eyelashes. She reached out her arms as if for some one to save her. “But for you I should have gone down.”

“No, no! but for me you would never have rushed into this awful danger!”

Mary Noel heard this, and hushed her sobs long enough to break in:

“Don’t say that—pray don’t! It was I who did it, with my miserable bravado. It was a great thing for me to show more courage than our Bertha, who is the bravest, sweetest darling on earth! Just take warning by me, Clara Anderson, and remember what it is to be a dangerous goose. I must pretend to be fearless—I, who trembled from my riding-cap to my boots when my horse touched the bridge, and galloped over like mad, from pure fright. I dragged the poor darling into it all, and shall hate myself forever and ever! Don’t reach out your hand to me and try to smile, as if it were nothing to lead one’s dearest school-mate on to death, Bertha! It only makes me feel worse!”

A one-horse wagon drove up to the bridge while Mary was speaking, and an old man, with a broad-brimmed hat on his head, got out.

“Is thee better, child?” he said, smoothing Bertha’s hair with his hand. “I have brought up the wagon. Grandmother thought it would be best. Come, then—we will thank our neighbors some other time.”

Bertha reached up her arms, wound them about the old man’s neck, and kissed him. Her heart swelled with the tenderness of unutterable gratitude. She longed to express it, but had only strength for broken speech.

“You are all so good to me; but, grandpapa, if it had not been for Mr. Fletcher—”

“I know, child,” said the old man, “he is brave and strong. There, now, give him thy hand; he is younger than I, and will feel it no weight to lift thee into the wagon.”

“But I can walk, grandfather. It will be enough if Mr. Fletcher gives me his arm.”

Fletcher gave Bertha his arm, and placed her in the wagon.

“Come with me—they will expect you,” she said, almost timidly; for she seemed to have wronged this man in not loving him when he had asked it of her.

Fletcher took a seat by Bertha, and drove down to the low-roofed old farm-house in silence, while she looked upon the great mass of waters, rolling down the valley, with a shudder. All at once she uttered a cry of surprise. There, swimming with the current, with his head just above water, was the poor horse, whose danger she had escaped. The desperate creature was fighting bravely for his life; but the torrent was impetuous, and his strength seemed almost exhausted.

“Poor thing! poor Jason!” cried the girl, bursting into tears. “No one thought of you—oh, see! his head turns this way! he sees us! The current is not so strong here—he swims bravely! Oh, Mr. Fletcher, I think he has found a foothold—look, and tell me if it is so!”

“Yes,” said Fletcher; “the brave old fellow will save himself!”

“Oh, how thankful I am! I did not know how sweet life was before. But you are grave, you look sad, while I am so happy only to live!”

The girl who had been rescued from the very jaws of death, so recently, had a feeling almost of adoration for the man who had saved her. It seemed as if she had never loved herself so fondly. They had drawn the wet gloves from her hands—she looked at them, rubbed them together, and kissed them with new interest. The old terror lingered about her yet; she felt her arms, and put back her hair, as if to satisfy herself that it was real life that beat in her bosom.

When that sickening sensation of falling came upon her, it had seemed like death itself; even the thought of that awful feeling made her faint. Now her sympathy was all for the struggling horse. To her he seemed capable of human suffering—of feeling all the awful shudders that had almost rent her soul from her body, when the bridge went down from under her.

“Look! look! he conquers the torrent! You can see his shoulders and the horns of my saddle! How he toils! Oh, his poor feet are slipping—now—now!”

Bertha and her lover stood now on the door-step of the farm-house, looking out upon the flood. Though cold, trembling, and wet, she had no heart to go in while that poor beast was fighting for the life that had so bravely been given back to her. Great tears rolled down her cheeks, her hands clasped themselves, she uttered faint cries whenever the current seized upon him and dragged him into deep waters again.

“Oh, here he is! Thank God, he has reached the shallow water! See how he reels and staggers! He sees us—it gives him life! Ho, Jason! dear old fellow; ho, Jason, ho!”

The horse waded girth-deep in water yet, but he lifted his head and erected his ears at the sound of Bertha’s voice. Then he struggled out of the depths, and came toward her, breaking into a feeble trot—shaking the water from his nostrils, and whinnying as if he understood her sympathy.

“You are wet and trembling, go in—go in,” said Fletcher. “The horse is safe now.”

“But you! Ah, Mr. Fletcher, if I could take those words back.”

“Not now. This is gratitude for nothing. I cannot take it.”

Fletcher wrung her hand, and turned back to the old bridge, where his horse was waiting.

Bertha sat down on the door-sill, covered her face with both hands, and began to cry. She was disturbed by a noise and something touching her shoulder. The hands dropped from her eyes, and, looking up, she saw her horse, which had made its way through the open gate, and stood, dripping wet, before her, with his head bent to her shoulder, as if craving some notice, after his terrible disaster.

“Poor old Jason! dear old fellow! we have been nearly lost together—you and I. What can I give you? What shall I do for you? How he quivers!”

Bertha threw her arms around the faithful creature’s neck, and, when her friends came, they thought she was weeping over the poor animal, who, like herself, had been saved almost by a miracle.

“Come in, child,” said the old friend, touching her shoulder. “Thy mother’s windows look away from the bridge. She does not know that it is gone; but she hears the roar of the flood and feels the danger. Look, the timbers are floating down. She will see them and die of the shock. Get up, Bertha, and let her know that her child is safe.”

Bertha sprang to her feet at once; for the hurried manner of the old lady frightened her. Up-stairs she ran, spite of the heavy garments that dragged her backward, and entered a chamber in which a woman knelt among the shadows, with her hands clasped, and her face uplifted in the ghostly whiteness of a dumb prayer.

“Mother, dear mother, I am here. No harm has befallen me,” cried Bertha, throwing herself down by the kneeling woman.

A faint cry, a gasp for breath, and the woman fell into her daughter’s arms sobbing like a child.